


best i ever had

by kilme



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Assassin bootcamp kinda summer fling, BAMF Phil Coulson, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Clint & Natasha basically have a summer fling, Clint Barton Can't Catch A Break, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint makes friends!, Homophobic Language, M/M, SHIELD Academy, a bit of an origin story, author is trying to let Clint Barton Catch A Break, author takes liberties with timelines & settings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16439240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kilme/pseuds/kilme
Summary: When Clint was five and the police turned up at his house, told Barney and him a bunch of platitudes and 'your parents are dead' as gently as possible, Clint said, "Good."And nothing else for the next two days.It kind of set the stage for the rest of his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is for swearing, violence, and general unpleasantness in Clint Barton's life and the criminal underworld. I don't think the violence is very graphic, but there is blood and bullets and wounds? Also warning for some homophobic behaviour and implied slurs. I really shouldn't have posted this because it's a work-in-progress with nothing more than a few scattered scenes, but my uni-admission exams are less than two weeks away and I wrote for the entirety of today instead of studying, so I figured at least something should come out of it :'D

When Clint was five and the police turned up at his house, told Barney and him a bunch of platitudes and 'your parents are dead' as gently as possible, Clint said, "Good."

And nothing else for the next two days.

It kind of set the stage for the rest of his life.

* * *

When Clint was twelve and lying flat on the dry grass some miles away from the circus, he thought seriously about running away.

More accurately, he re-thought it seriously. He already had all his meager cash (from tips and bets and picking pockets) strapped to his thigh and he didn't own much else than the clothes on his back. His body was aching with bruises from his latest beating - for missing the bullseye during tonight's show - layered upon still-healing ones.

But he wouldn't run without Barney. Barney had brought Clint along when he'd run, even though Clint was smaller and stupider and a burden.

In truth, Clint was more attached to the circus than Barney was. The trapeze artists liked Clint and would teach him tricks between practices. The Strong Woman gave him huge, engulfing hugs - she did that with all the children - and Clint got along with the younger kids. They shoveled animal dung together and splashed in the rivers together. Barney was the one who made fewer friends and got into more fights.

In the end, it was still Barney who hadn't wanted to run.

* * *

When Clint was sixteen, Barney caught him fooling around in the shadows behind the juggler's caravan with the contortionist's apprentice, Timmy. They'd both been desperate from teenage hormones and riding on the post-show high, too wrapped up in each other, panting and moaning too loudly to hear Barney approach.

That night was the first and last time he looked at Barney, Barney's fist crashing into his face, and saw their father instead. That night, Barney called him things that he would always feel carved into his skin and yelled that they were no longer brothers, that he never wanted to see Clint again.

Clint never went anywhere without all his cash strapped to his thigh anymore. After Barney stomped off, Clint picked himself up off the ground, pointed himself in a direction and ran.

Well, he limped. Furious, betrayed, numb, and everything in between, he walked and walked and walked till the sun came up and went down again. He never looked back.

* * *

When Clint was twenty-one, he was sitting in the filthy bathroom of a run-down motel and wrapping bandages around the bullet wound in his torso, gritting his teeth hard. Afterwards, he dragged himself to the bed and passed out.

Twelve hours later, he startled awake with every hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. His muscles forcibly relaxed, he tried to assess the situation with his eyes closed.

"I know you're awake, little bird," a woman's voice said. It was silky and beautiful and darkly lethal.

He opened his eyes and warily pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the screaming pain in his side. The woman had flaming red hair and a lithe figure, and was easily the most striking person he had ever laid eyes on. He never doubted for a second that no one would ever see her if she wanted to disappear.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"Call me Natasha."

"What do you want, Natasha?" It was almost definitely not her real name. He's fine with that; it didn't matter to him.

"To teach you a few things about our trade," she said easily, like it made even the slightest sliver of sense.

He eyed her cautiously. There wasn't much he could do but go along with her, what with his wound and the aura of danger that poured off her. He was good, and she was better. But he had to know.

"And in return? What will I give you?"

Her lips didn't move, but her eyes glinted with something that was almost a smile. It was anything but nice. "You'll see."

He's fine with that, too. There was nothing for him to lose.

* * *

When Clint was twenty-three, he knew he was wrong. He owned practically nothing, but there was still so much for him to lose.

"No," he told his employer. He refused to kill a child. He didn't care if it was stupid or if he would die over this - and he could, honestly, die over this, because he already knew too much about this operation and his employers weren't known for their mercy - but he couldn't lose his last bit of... of humanity, or whatever it was. He's far too many kills past being a decent person, but he'd eat his own gun before shooting a little boy.

"You have no choice," the drug lord sneered at him, stubbing out his cigarette on the naked woman draped over his lap. She didn't flinch, and neither did Clint. "You kill the boy, or we kill you." There were bodyguards all around the room, and at least forty other men in the compound. Clint didn't care.

"I pick door three."

Before the drug lord could even ask what that meant, he had a hole in his forehead and there was blood and brains all over his pristine white couch and the naked woman's skin.

The bodyguards yelled and shot at Clint, but he had already dropped to the floor and rolled towards the window. The bodyguard in one corner managed to shoot the one in the opposite corner. Everyone was shouting. He put bullets in the remaining four standing, and then crashed out the second-story window.

He ran, blended in with crowds, slipped through four different disguises, picked up two weapon caches he had hidden in the area, and stayed in the sewers for two weeks before sniping off a few other top dogs of that drug syndicate. He didn't know if it would keep the little boy safe, but he'd done his best.

He stowed away on a ship to Sokovia and felt, strangely, like maybe that was the first good thing he'd done in his life. He knew it would come back to bite him in the ass, that he'll most likely get hunted down and killed painfully and slowly at some point, but-

Well, he can't say he hadn't expected the day to come, sooner or later.

* * *

It turned out to be later.

When Clint was twenty-four, some alphabet agency or other tried to hunt him down. He's pretty sure it's multiple alphabet agencies, actually. He didn't want to be a gun for hire any longer, had never wanted to be one, but he wanted to be a weapon pointed around by the government even less.

It took them eight months, twelve countries and twenty cities to catch up to him.

In the streets of Caracas, he got shot in the leg by a goddamned suit. He'd escaped worse situations with worse injuries, but the man was shockingly fast and had him pressed to the ground, arm twisted up behind him, before he could get far. (Maybe, subconsciously, Clint hadn't wanted to get far.)

The man's shin was digging into the back of his own, but it wasn't over the bullet wound in his thigh and Clint realised, hysterically, that this passed for kindness in his world.

"I'm Agent Phil Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, and we would like to offer you a position with us," the suit said blandly, like he was discussing the weather.

Clint started laughing, building up steam as he thought _how is this my life_  and wondered, for the first time in about ten years, what it would have been like to be normal. He could've been out of college, maybe in grad school, maybe in a good job, maybe bar-tending or whatever. Knowing his luck, however, it's more likely that he'd have been living on the streets anyway, homeless and barely scraping his life together with both hands.

The man continued as though Clint wasn't outright giggling beneath him, "You'll have three meals a day, a room in any SHIELD quarters you're assigned to, a steady salary in addition to hazard pay, and someone to watch your six."

"You're kinda _on_ my six now," Clint joked, half-mad with pain and desperate longing. If something seemed too good to be true, it _was_  too good to be true. He knew that. He did.

It didn't stop him from wanting it with every fiber of his being.

"We always take care of our own," the suit told him firmly, "And we don't make our agents kill if we can help it."

Weirdly, Clint felt almost like he wanted to believe him.

* * *

SHIELD managed to surprise him.

"We'd like to take care of the organisation that's been after your blood for some two years now." Clint had opened the door of his SHIELD-assigned room to a knock the very day he was released from medical and found Agent Coulson standing there with a file in hand and no greeting.

Clint didn't ask 'how did you know that?' because it was SHIELD. And because he wouldn't have gotten an answer anyway. Clint also didn't ask Coulson to come in, and the man didn't make any indication of wanting to.

"Your input and assistance will be valuable, but we will take them down with or without you."

As though Clint wouldn't be jumping all over the chance to take apart the fucking syndicate that had ordered him to murder a child.

"Given that you are new to SHIELD and given the history you have with the organisation, you have a choice whether or not to provide intel for this op. You won't be given this luxury in the future. But if you choose to, meeting's in conference room 8 in ten. You haven't been given the tour, so you'll have to come with me." Agent Coulson extended the file to him.

Clint took it on auto-pilot, befuddled and trying desperately not to show it. He didn't know whether it was more confusing that he'd been given a choice or that he's being trusted to give reliable intel barely a week into joining SHIELD. He didn't even have a position or a security badge yet. Hell, he hadn't even met anyone other than those who'd brought him in and the med staff.

The suit nodded. "Barton," he said and turned on his heel, not even asking Clint whether he was coming.

Clint stared blankly after him and followed.

* * *

SHIELD took the syndicate down while Clint was going through basic, shooting rifles on a range and sitting in seminars where he alternated between intrigued and trying not to fall asleep. He didn't have the security nor the medical clearance to be on the op, even though the healing wound in his leg wouldn't have interfered with his ability to pull the trigger.

He's a little bit bitter, but just a bit. Mostly, he was glad he'd never have to deal with them again.

He had plenty of other enemies, but none he'd managed to piss off quite so thoroughly, or which were so large and well-organised. In a way, SHIELD had already begun watching his six.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More warnings for swearing and actual slurs in this one. Thanks for reading and a huge thank you to those who left kudos/comments! :D

Clint had trust issues, issues with authority, and issues with assholes-in-general. It's probably in his SHIELD file.

But he's got it handled. A large portion of the SHIELD Academy teachers were professional, with high standards but respectful enough about it. A few were terrible at their jobs, and Clint hated the pompous, drill-sergeant-like ones, but so long as they didn't take issue with Clint, he didn't take issue with them. He's good at staying on the sidelines, subtly breaking rules left and right with no one the wiser.

And then there was Vance Frader, who was straight-up incompetent and blissfully unaware of it, on top of being sexist, racist, and every kind of -ist that existed. He had a habit of referring to female recruits as 'girl' and an array of condescending, painfully uncreative nicknames for most of the male ones. Clint had the lovely honour of being called 'country boy'. He doubted Frader had bothered to read their files, so it must have been on the basis of his sandy hair alone.

The thing is, Clint didn't have anger management issues. He wasn't his father. What Clint did have was the knowledge that it only took one incident for people to decide they can screw with you and get away with it. He was never going to take anyone's shit again.

Two weeks into basic, Weapons Instructor Frader told the newest batch of recruits to pick a pistol and shoot. No instructions, no assembly and disassembly of the gun first, no teaching of the proper way to stand and aim. Clint knew, of course, but he could tell by the few panicky and lost expressions around him that not everyone did.

"Excuse me, sir," a petite girl (Penny? Or was that the other one? Angela?) said in a surprisingly strong voice.

"What, girl?" He spat.

"Some of us have never learnt how to shoot a pistol, sir," she continued, tipping her chin up.

"For God's sake, just point it and shoot! If you don't know that, what are you doing in SHIELD?" He waved her off. "Go home and pop out a kid or something instead."

Her jaw clenched, along with every other recruit's.

"Get on with it and stop standing around like a bunch of retarded morons!"

Clint really, really, really wanted to punch the guy in the face. Repeatedly. It was obvious many of the others did too, but they refrained, so Clint refrained as well.

Instead, he made his way over to the girl as they all lined up to grab a pistol each. "Watch me," he said when he was standing behind her.

She whirled around, blinked at him. "What?" she asked cautiously.

"Later." He tipped his head at the shooting lanes. "I know how to shoot. I can help you, if you want." He shrugged and hoped he didn't come off as arrogant. It's been awhile since he'd tried holding a... relatively normal conversation.

She considered him for a moment, then stuck out her hand. "Tyla O'Brien," she said, "And thanks. I appreciate it."

He shook her hand carefully, making sure it was firm but not crushing. Oh God, this may be the first time he's shaking hands with someone who's not going to offer him money and a face or name to off after.

"Clint Barton," he returned, and nodded for O'Brien to turn around and stop holding up the queue.

It would have been okay if Frader hadn't come over while Clint was correcting O'Brien's stance, and immediately demanded, "What do you think you're doing, country boy?"

Clint schooled his expression into the most dangerously blank one in his arsenal before he turned to face Frader. He'd learnt it from Natasha; he knew it was good.

"Your job." He paused, and added in a tone dripping with sarcasm, "Sir."

Frader looked about two words away from stomping his foot or bursting a vein in his forehead. "And what gives you the fucking right, boy?"

Clint shrugged, faux-casual. "No one else was stepping up to do it, so it seemed like I was the best option around."

"Barton," O'Brien hissed in alarm, even as the taller man took three steps closer to Clint, forcing him to look up into his flushed, moustached face. "You've got some fucking nerve, little shit."

Clint was so far from intimidated he could have laughed. He could take Frader in his sleep, with both hands tied behind his back.

"And the skills to back it up." Clint grinned viciously. He hoped Frader would take it as a challenge; it would be the highlight of his year to show him up a little. It would have been even more awesome if Frader had been their hand-to-hand instructor instead - Clint could have put him flat on his back in five seconds - but Clint wasn't complaining. This was fun.

Clint raised his eyebrows slightly and said, as innocent as he knew how, "Been called the World's Greatest Marksman and all that, y'know? Though I wouldn't be surprised if a man like you haven't heard of me."

"What do you think you're saying, country boy? 'A man like me'," Frader gritted out. Clint was going to get flunked out of the Academy and he didn't give a shit. If SHIELD tolerated assholes like these he didn't want to stick around anyway.

"Didn't mean nuthin' by that, sir. Just, well, you haven't been on the field in awhile, yeah?" Clint drawled in his thickest Iowa accent, and landed his gaze on the man's beer belly so there was no doubt what he meant. "Bein' an Academy Instructor and all."

"You- fuckin'- do you know what I can- that's it!" The man roared, "You're out. Pack your bags and leave, you- you- little fag!"

Perhaps that last bit got to Clint more than he wanted to admit, because before he'd fully processed what he was doing, he was pulling out the pistol in his holster and firing six shots into the paper target, all without looking. He slammed the button that brought the target zooming across the lane back to them.

He didn't have to look to know there was only a single hole through the centre, and he brandished it in Frader's face.

"Your loss," Clint said with finality, slammed the paper down on the nearest surface, and left.

Fuck SHIELD. He should never have trusted it anyway.

* * *

Clint knew Nick Fury was high up in the SHIELD hierarchy the first time he met him - not because Fury introduced himself as 'Assistant Director' or anything, and not even because a certain, undeniable quality clung to every inch of the man, that of fuck-with-me-and-you'll-be-crying-for-your-mama-in-two-point-oh-seconds.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, put down your fucking clothes and stop packing, motherfucker," was the first thing Fury said to him, upon throwing open the door of Clint's Academy dorm room and letting it crash against the wall.

Clint froze, took one look at the leather duster draped over the man's shoulders, and _knew_. This man was one of the toppest top dogs in SHIELD. No one else could get away with such a ridiculous get-up, much less get away with it  _and_  make it look almost natural.

Still, Clint put the last of his clothes into his go-bag and zipped it up defiantly, not breaking eye contact the whole while.

"Frader's fired, not you, alright? Jesus. Been itchin' to give that useless son of a bitch the boot," the man grumbled.

Clint blinked. He was not used to a person with authority being on his side. The appropriate response would most likely be gratefulness or, at the very least, acknowledgment, but he sure as hell wasn't feeling it.

"Don't thank me or anything," Leather-duster-dude said sarcastically, waving a hand at him. "And come on, World's Greatest Marksman." Clint tensed, waiting for mockery, but the man was already sweeping out of his room and gesturing for Clint to follow him.

"Let's see what you can do."

Clint was rapidly getting sick of people turning away from him and expecting him to follow them, but he did anyway.

* * *

They made their way through the Academy and to the outdoors shooting range together, drawing just about every pair of eyes they passed. Clint kept his expression bored and his gait purposely relaxed, not sure whether he was angry or relieved but uncomfortable enough to squash it all down anyway.

When leather duster asked him what his preferred weapon was, he looked the guy straight in the eye and said, "Recurve bow."

"A bow," the man repeated. "A goddamned-" He made a motion in the air, pulling the imaginary string of an imaginary bow.

Clint nodded. After a moment, he added, "Guns are fine, though."

The man let out a loud, sudden bark. Clint nearly blinked in surprise at the sound, and then had to stop himself a second time when he realised it was a laugh.

"Just 'fine', he says," the man muttered to himself, striding away. Louder, he called ahead to the Weapons Master, "Get me one of every type of gun you have. Actually, any type of long-range weapon you have."

The agent startled at the booming voice and snapped to attention. "Yes, sir, Assistant Director, sir!" He saluted, scurrying away to grab the requested weapons. _Assistant Director,_  Clint thought to himself with an inkling of unease. He'd sure attracted some serious attention.

Twenty minutes later, Clint had shot a bulls-eye with every single gun the Weapons Master had brought out, including a blowgun - that had been interesting -, and moved on to shooting bulls-eyes in adjacent lanes and the SHIELD logo on his paper target. He was showing off a little, but so what? Leather duster didn't stop him and Clint had been recruited for this, anyway. SHIELD had to already be aware of his skills; a little demonstration wouldn't hurt.

"That's enough," the man said as the other agent moved to hand Clint a revolver. He made a dismissive gesture at the Weapons Master and the man immediately gathered up an armful of weapons and marched back to his post.

Leather duster turned to Clint. "Think you can do better if we get you a bow?" He asked.

Abruptly, Clint wanted to grin. He hadn't touched a bow in years - too distinctive and unsubtle for the type of work he was doing - and he had never stopped missing the feel of it. He'd be rusty, but he would never forget the tensing of muscles with the draw, the singing of wood and string beneath his fingertips.

"Get me one," he promised, "And I'll show you."

God, he was looking forward to it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I'm in the middle of my A level exams... (*screams internally*) But it's ending in about a week so hopefully I'll get to write more! I can't wait to write some Phil, although it'll probably just be SHIELD Academy gossip first. Heh xD

Inexplicably, Clint became... slightly popular.

He did expect to earn a bit of a reputation for himself, but he sure as hell didn't expect the other recruits coming up to him in the mess hall, grinning at him and slapping him on the back for getting rid of that crazy old bat Frader, or for his impressive aim, or for catching the attention of the Assistant Director.

He almost felt more comfortable with the glares he caught at the corners of his eyes and occasionally head-on. The jealousy in those glares was new - he'd taken a while to even recognise the emotion - but hostility he was intimately familiar with. He knew how to deal with that. On the other hand, the first time someone had given him a friendly punch on the shoulder, he'd nearly broken the guy's nose and definitely scared him with the automatic murderous expression on his face.

It's all bizarre as fuck and Clint escaped to the roofs more than he was willing to admit, but it was also kind of nice, once he got used to it.

Tyla O'Brien had started sticking to him in a way that made him feel, strangely, like he was being looked after, although she's the one undeniably wet behind the ears. She steered them to the cafeteria at appropriate meal times and made friends with all the people who approached Clint like it was _easy_. She was outgoing and brave, straightforward and oddly optimistic, and Clint couldn't even begin to understand her. He did teach her to shoot properly though, and he could admire the way her focus narrowed when faced with a target at the end of a lane. He wouldn't say they're friends, exactly, but...

They're sort of friends.

Somehow, a small group started forming around them. The Operations division of SHIELD Academy had two batches of recruits a year, starting with around thirty and dwindling to less than ten near the end of the stint, but Clint had been dropped in a little more than a quarter of the way through the term. There had already been groups formed and Clint had been more than fine with being left more or less alone, the lone wolf of the bunch.

But with Tyla came her friend Denny Hayes, and then Charlie Gonzales managed to charm all three of them with his lightly British accent, good cheer and strange sense of humour. (The first thing he said to them was during a lecture about Asian languages: "Well, I don't know about you lot, but I'm really starting to embrace my decision not to become an academic. Learning to be kickass with a gun is one thing, but knowing how to shoot someone _while_ begging their pardon in their native tongue is another, huh?")

And thus Clint's usual table in the corner of the mess hall got taken over by light-hearted gossip, banter and three people who didn't know that he used to kill people for a living.

It's bizarre _as fuck_.

* * *

Clint's roommate was from the Science & Tech division of SHIELD Academy. Beyond introducing themselves when they first met, they'd barely exchanged more than a few words. It wasn't out of any mutual dislike, so far as Clint could tell, but rather that Josiah Miller was really  _that_ absorbed in his books and strange machines. He was constantly muttering beneath his breath, sometimes actually walking into walls and door-frames because his nose was buried in a book. He paid Clint no mind, even when Clint was hanging backwards off his bunk and shooting little paper balls out the window with his self-made slingshot.

It was an arrangement that suited them both, right up till that one night where Miller set down a thick stack of books on the last vacant spot of his table and promptly burst into tears.

Clint was alarmed, to say the least.

Jumping off the top bunk, he immediately made his way over, then hovered a safe distance away for fear of scaring the other boy. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" He panicked.

"Nooooo!" Miller wailed, sounding distressed by the fact.

"What? What? Why are you crying?" Clint asked frantically.

"I've got a- I can't- I don't know how to do this!"

Miller sank onto his bed with his hands covering his face, the picture of utter despair.

"Um... uh- do you... do you want me to get someone?"

The boy shook his head quickly, probably smearing snot all over his palms. Clint felt like he was having an out-of-body experience as he snatched a box of tissues off the table and offered it to Miller.

Miller plucked a tissue out of the box, saying 't-t-thanks', blew his nose, then kept right on sobbing.

"I don't know how- do they expect- I just- I have to-" He stuttered in between great gasping sobs, as Clint flailed his arms around helplessly.

"Right," Clint agreed, trying to sound soothing and falling short by about a mile, "Right, just, stop crying?" He cringed at himself. He was so far out of his depth here. "I mean- I mean, keep crying if it makes you feel better, I'm not judging, but, but, please don't cry," he implored.

Miller barely seemed to hear him.

"Hey, it's-" He stopped himself from saying 'it's going to be alright', because he actually had no clue what the boy was even crying about. What if his grandfather had died or something? "Is there... something I can do to help?"

"Not unless you're an expert in quantum mechanics!" Miller wailed.

Clint was sure he looked utterly nonplussed. How was this happening to him, when he was quite possibly the least qualified person in the entire building to provide comfort and/or help with some crazy science?

Miller took Clint's silence as a 'no', quite accurately, and flopped down onto his bed to curl into a miserable ball of tears.

"Um," Clint started, "Um. I've never even heard of that, but I can read...?" Wow, he was amazing himself with how completely useless he was. He gestured wildly at the books on the table. "If you tell me what to look for - or something, I don't know how research works - I can help you get through that stack."

Miller sniffled. "Really?" He asked, shoulders still shaking.

"Yes!" Clint cleared his throat, repeating less enthusiastically, "Yeah, sure. I don't have anything else to do anyway." _As long as it stops your crying,_  he thought desperately.

Slowly, the other boy uncurled and started pushing himself up. Clint offered a hand, pleasantly surprised when Miller actually took it. "Thank you," the smaller boy said eventually, after sitting on the side of the bed for a few minutes to calm his breathing down, "And sorry for, y'know. It's just, I have to do a presentation the day after tomorrow and... stage fright, plus the fact that  _everyone_ at SHIELD is so incredibly smart... I got kinda overwhelmed." He was blushing in embarrassment, eyes hidden behind a curtain of curly brown fringe, and Clint quickly assured him there was nothing to worry about.

It turned out Clint was really no help at all, because he couldn't even begin to understand the advanced texts Miller was referring to, but he did end up befriending his roommate, staying up with him even though Clint had a training exercise first thing in the morning.

Miller didn't cry again, so Clint counted it as a victory. Yay.

* * *

"Fury's looking for you," Denny told Clint during lunch break one day, plopping down his tray beside Tyla, opposite Clint. Denny looked nervous. Clint didn't know what on Earth he was talking about.

"Fury who?"

Tyla gave him a funny look. "You've met him, haven't you? I didn't think those rumours were wrong."

"Which ones?" There were far too many about Clint circulating around.

"The one where the Assistant Director himself brought you to the range and watched you shoot a bullseye with every weapon SHIELD has," Tyla explained.

Clint blinked. Oh. His name was Fury? He had a leather cloak and his name was _Fury_? Surely he belonged in a theater, not a shadowy government organisation. "Not every weapon," he managed to say out loud.

"Oh, come on!" Charlie exclaimed, "No need to be modest, Jesus. Like it wouldn't have been every weapon, if you'd gotten to try all of them."

"Well," Clint drawled, "I am the best." He grinned at the eye rolls that earned him, and added, "Charlie told me not to be modest."

Charlie held up his hands and raised his eyebrows. "I never said that. I just said you didn't _need_  to be modest. Whether you choose to be is up to you."

"Should've just become an academic if you're so hung up about semantics," Clint grumbled, trying not to ruin the effect by smiling.

"Hey!" Charlie protested, even as Denny asked around a large bite of casserole, "But why's Fury looking for you?" He was still looking nervous. "Did you piss somebody off?"

Clint shrugged. He had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with a bow, but he wasn't going to get his hopes up. "Guess I'll go find out."

"Heard he's at the range," Denny supplied helpfully.

Clint barely restrained himself from bouncing in glee. As it was, he jumped up from his seat a little over-enthusiastically, startling the other three.

"Want us to come with?" Tyla asked, Charlie nodding to show he wouldn't mind, either.

"Nah, s'fine, finish your lunch!" Clint threw over his shoulder, already jogging away. At least he wasn't flat-out sprinting, but if he was, well, who could blame him? A bow!

He did a little fist punch in the air and skillfully ignored the weird looks he was getting.


End file.
